The Steel Guitar Forum

Two NEW "old tunes" are up and playing for you on www.jerrybyrdfanclub.com

Hope you'll enjoy them if not heard before.

If any of you out there wonder what Ray and and a number of other JB fans mean when we talk about that "moan" in Rick bakelites, go to the link Ray provided and click on JB's music. Then go down to the player at the bottom and listen to a song by Jimmy Wakely with JB providing the intro and break.

If you listen closely, you will hear this moan from time to time very clearly. It is a sound phenomenon, NO other steel guitar in the world has EVER produced. For those of us who loved it, we simply had to have it when we seek vintage Ricks. Some have it more than others. But in any case, NO one ever brought it out more than Jerry.

In watching and listening to him for sooooo many years, I believe he "milked" this moan with his bar hand. But regardless, all I know is how I love that sound.

If I had to choose between sounds I would like most to get, I would be hard pressed to choose between the Jerry Byrd Rick sound and Buddy Emmons black album sound. Both of these are IMO, sounds on a steel guitar to die for.

May Jesus richly bless Jerry and Buddy, and all of you always,

carl

A Better Way

I wish they'd put the hole in the middle of the record.

<SMALL> Some great sounds no available for you</SMALL>

so, what's a matter you? They a no available for me, atsa ok. I finda them somewhere else!

Can you give me an indication of what I'm listening for? Is it in the solos, or during the verses? (This is a serious question)

I have most of Jerry's solo albums, but his backup work is a lot harder to find. I've never heard the Jimmy Wakely song before. Very nice!! Thanks for sharing these rare gems, Ray!

John.....Jerry's back-up work is an excellent example of "pure art". Jerry has been able to make his back-up FLOW....not only with the vocalist voice, but the theme of the song and words being sung as I will be showing in releases still to come. Few steel players today.....IMHO...do more than make a mechanical plunk here or a plunk over there, without either of those two plunks even being related. Byrd on the other hand, made it a free flowing presentation from phrase to phrase, verse to verse.
Now, was it the "moan" you're asking about? It's hard for ME to put in words and Carl said it quite clearly. It's a HEAR IT kind of thing. It's a sound you will seldom (if ever) hear anywhere else.....but in Byrd's fabulous playing. Understand, I have no desire to convert anyone into a Byrd kind of fanatic nor copy-cat, but for one to be unable to hear "this sound", to me and IMHO, suggests, one's ear must become more adept at "hearing" the musical sounds. It's RICH!
It's DYNAMIC! It's unmatched by any machine or gimmick. It existed with JB and his Rick but disappeared, sadly to say, during his later transitions to the Trot-Mor, Fender and Sho-Bud.
And Jeff.....I'm only too happy to share these scratchy old records with you guys. Byrd has done some fabulous work way outside of his own limited number of instrumental albums/singles.....and I hated to think of my dying one day....and for these old records to simply be collecting dust and with no further opportunity for others to hear them. I DO hope that you'll enjoy these great performances. They are rare!
Some will hear these tunes and have only negative remarks to make. Those more attuned
to sounds of unqiue greatness will recognize it in short order and will thrill as many of us have..........for the rest of your life.

For all you folks out there...

Let's appreciate the work that Ray is doing to keep the JB sounds from the old records alive, it's always great to see these old records being saved from being forgotten or overlooked!

And, Ray, who are those people talking bad about those old JB records?

Kind Regards, Walter
www.austriansteelguitar.at.tf

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The "moan" I am referring to is like Ray says, one may hear it an NOT recognize it. But once you are aware of what we are talking about, you will instantly, from that point on, be able to identify whether it has it or not.

The "moan" is a sound that accompanies the picked or harmonicked sound but does not come from the pick or the harmonic. Rather it is a sound that appears to generate within the musical notes as they sustain.

While I could emulate it in person with my mouth the best discription I can come up with, is a mellow metalic sound that in print might go like this..

Zzzzzzzzzzwwwwwwweeeeeunnggggggg ever so deliberately; yet softly in the background as the notes sustain.

Incidently, NOT all ricks have it. Those that do, some have it more than others. But one thing is for sure, just about every JB fan and/or Rick fan around knows what I am talking about. It is one of the reasons we; and I am sure Jerry loved the Rick sooo much.

Also, I have to agree with Ray totally on the sound Jerry got after he started playing other brand instruments. I will always prefer the Rick sound to ANY sound he ever got. In addition, and I know this makes him less than happy (but it is from my heart); I am sad that about the only thing he played for the last 20+ yrs is Hawaiian type songs.

I feel this way because I did not fall in love with Jerry's playing because he played Hawaiian music. Rather I was knocked out by his backing singers like Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb in the early days of what we now call Country music. When Jerry played then, his music was sooooo classic and sooo perfect in my ears at least, that it etched forever in my cranium "that" sound that I shall take to my grave.

I respect all his work and love most of it. But the beginning works when he backed ALL those stars he recorded with is what I hold the most dear.

Back to the moan. My ears have become soooo attuned to it, I can hear it picking a single open string. IE, I can tell whether it is there or not; simply by listening carefully to a string that is picked with normal pressure.

Sorry I can't be more discriptive, I just don't know a way to adaquately describe what that "moan" sounds like in print.

carl

Thanks, I'll keep my ears open.

And by the way, I totally agree that his playing on these "Honky Tonk" songs is fantastic!

This won't explain or discribe the ‘moan’, as it has been referred to, but; I know what I mean when I describe it as such: “Uh~” It kinda makes your lower jaw protrude!

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“Big John” Bechtel
http://community.webtv.net/KeoniNui/BigJohnBechtels

If I was trying to describe the "moan," I would describe it as a "slow phasing" process but the phasing would be so slow and faint it would not be noticed by the un-trained ear.

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kd...and the beat goes on...

Ah it's a mac/windows thing! I was wondering why I could never get any sound clips on Ray's site to play.

Hi Ray,

I am using a PC, windows XP, and Media Player 9, but no luck.
I thought about sending you an e-mail, but maybe others are having the same problem.

Thanks for all you do.

Ron

Quote: "Ah it's a mac/windows thing!"

You mean "the moan" Andy???

Yep, the "other" moan when Microsoft products fail without warning.

Perhaps I should just pull the site. I've gotten more negative responses for the effort than positive remarks. I can't seem to make everyone in the world happy so what are my options? I'm not a professional computer person and no one financed this endeavor for me. So.......
How about a poll. Those in favor of my pulling the site......just let me know. And it will be done.

Ray, I vote to leave the site up. I remember back in 1951 and '52, when I was about eleven or twelve years old, sitting beside an old 45 rpm record player with my little 6 string Alamo steel on my lap, playing along with Jerry Byrd records for hours on end. I've played pedal steel almost exclusively since about 1961, but I still get great pleasure listening to the Old Jerry Byrd songs as well as the ones he played behind singers. So, I say keep 'em coming.......

I vote to leave it up, too!

The music world and the internet need your site!

If I was around back then, I'd be a proud, card carrying member of the original JB fan club, too.

I'm a Byrd-Brain/Byrd-head, and proud of it!

Keep up the great work, Ray...your efforts are appreciated!!

Ray, this site is a testimate to Jerry Byrd and also you, please leave it up. The way I have been getting the downloads is to look at the source code of the mp3. and cutting it into my address bar, that's how I was able to listen to those way cool songs before. I was only able to achieve this success because my girlfriend is a brain when it comes to computers. I tried to do this with these new audio samples, but I need her to look at it because I'm doing something wrong somewhere. The source code is found in the "view" up above in between edit and favorites on windows. I'll have her look at it and she can maybe tell us some suggestions on how to fix things here. I know I have learned alot from your site already and for us new dedicated students of Jerry Byrd, it's the perfect compliment to his great instructional course. Keep up the good work bro!
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jesse Pearson on 02 March 2004 at 09:12 PM.]</p></FONT>

Ray, I'd sure like to be able to hear your sound clips but please don't take that as a "negative" comment. I appreciate that your JB site is a labor of love and that there's a ton of good info there. I applaud you for sharing something you're passionate about. Keep on doing what you're doing and someone will no doubt step forward to help you make the site friendlier for all operating systems.

Please leave it up Ray.....otherwise the subject of this thread will really be true.

Hey I love this Jerry Byrd website it is great a real work of art and the different recordings are wonderful always a treat to hear Jerry Byrd play his instrumentals are the best, but his background sounds can be awesome. Enjoy and learn. Al

Hang in there Ray. I know you went to considerable expense to set up this web site and it is doing the job you wanted to do. Computers are funny things. I think anyone of us can attest to that. It is not all your site problem for you know people can hear the sound clips you have put up. I do know for a fact that a lot of the problem people are having is a short between the keyboard and the computer. It is an impossible task for you to be able to interface with every computer out there. Many are not up to the latest configurations and never will be and they do not have enough memory avialble. It is an expensive thing to keep a computer updated and some cannot be updated. Point in fact. I was having a terrible time finding a good virus scanner that was compatible with my windows 95 machine. At times it would lock me up and the only thing I could do was wipe my hard drive clean and reload everything from scratch. Well I got tired of that and went to a newer machine with XP. I have automatic updating on XP and my Virus scanner and I can tell you I have been getting many updates recently and have had no problems whatsoever. People have different computers as we all know with different operating systems at all various levels of configurations. Some never get updated and when they try to do some of the newer neater things like trying to listen to music it don't work and it's very easy to blame your site when it's their machine. I was a Mac user and loved it. It really was the first computer I used. Very, very user friendly and you couldn't convince me no PC was ever gonna make me change my mind. But when MAC fell upon hard times and that was when I was buying my windows 95 machine I sure wanted to get a MAC. Why didn't I? I couldn't see them staying up with all the lastest software gizmos and decided I better go with windows. There are still some things Mac do better, but when 95 came out it pretty much mirrowed the MAC operating system especially with the file management which I thought the MAC's did an excellent job. Anyway, I think you just need to keep on doing what you are doing. I beleive a good many of the forumites are getting the sound clips without any trouble and maybe those that are not need to investigate there system capabilities a little and see if they are not the problem instead of you, which I think is the case. I hope this does not blow off anyone, I know some about computers but I am not an expert by no means but do know compatibily with operatings systems and some of the software that is out there just don't function together 100% of the time. We all get a glitch now and then and can't figure it out. I even get them now and then but one thing I see is that I get an alert window that comes up in those cases informing me my computer did something illegal and that I could forward it to Mircosoft for investigation. I suppose this is one method they use to update the operating system errors when they occur. Anyway Ray, I think your site is excellent and keep on doing what you are doing. I know it takes some effort on your part to do this but it looks like to me from some of the recent comments folks are using the information (music) you are putting on the site. Good on Ya!!